-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Thailand 's rice bowl is now Thailand 's nightmare .

The Chao Phraya River delta nourishes the nation 's vast rice paddies . But Friday , the river and its many tributaries eyed the capital , Bangkok , like a ferocious animal stalking its prey .

Monsoonal rains have flooded Thailand 's plains and now the bursting river threatens to drown Bangkok .

The water has already turned parking lots into marinas , markets into lakes and houses into homes suitable only for fish . It has gushed into houses of the holy -- Buddhist temples stood amid rising water -- and into sanctuaries of the vulnerable .

Fifteen elephants , including seven mothers with babies and a 9-year-old known for its painting skills , are stranded on top of Ayutthaya 's Royal Elephant Kraal . The elephants climbed on top of the building last week and are going hungry now that food can only be brought in small quantities on rowing boats . Elephants can swim but the babies might drown in an attempt to escape .

In Bangkok and other deluged cities and towns , the strong carried the feeble on their backs . The young aided the old .

Everyone helped each other .

It was hard to imagine that last year , Red Shirts battled Yellow Shirts in deadly political street protests that prompted a state of emergency in Thailand and left a nation deeply divided .

Disaster brought them back together this week .

An English Facebook page set up to help foreigners in Thailand saw a frenzy of action Friday .

`` Kidney failure patients 'd like to get in dialysis process can contact HSRI co. with NE Kidney Medico ''

`` Free shuttle bus from Dusit Thani hotel to TU DOME available for donation stuffs logistic tomorrow ''

`` Slippers -LRB- foam type -RRB- needed for any sizes at Don Muang Evacuation Cent . ''

`` Both lanes of Bangkruy-Sainoi Rd. . . flooded ''

With 283 people dead and another 8 million affected by the flooding , the fears were real in Bangkok .

Workers stuffed sandbags furiously and shored up barriers . Evacuation centers began to fill with people .

Banjong Palim , 43 , said he had never seen anything like this in his lifetime . He was forced to flee when his suburban Bangkok home drowned .

Some recalled the devastating 2004 tsunami that wiped out everything with walls of water . And panicked .

Ed White watched the river flow over containment walls in Ayutthaya . He stacked the furniture as high as he could get it in his house in there , and felt lucky it was made of concrete and brick , not wood , like so many traditional Thai homes .

White grew up in Ocean City , Maryland . He was used to hurricanes and the Atlantic 's fury . But this was different .

The water was not raging . There were n't torrents .

It just kept inching upward . Slowly , but surely .

At the market where White gets his hair cut , people scurried , spreading rumors born from fear . In two hours , they said , everything would be under water . The flood was coming ! The flood was coming !

White moved to Thailand in 2003 to work for a rubber company . Friday , he said he had moved into a second-floor company apartment in Bangkok , confident he would be safe there . Meanwhile , his employer had made a fortress out of the rubber factory , erecting concrete barriers around everything as though it were a war zone .

For many it was a losing battle .

The military helped evacuate them , whisking them away by boat or carrying them through chest-high water .

Just about every day now , rain has come down hard , exacerbating worries . This is already the worst flooding Thailand has seen in decades . Some wondered Friday how much worse it could get .

The government 's Flood Relief Centre chief said that Bangkok would be spared . But with a chance of thunderstorms in the forecast for the next few days , reassurances Friday were difficult to swallow .

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Thailand 's monsoonal flooding is the worst in decades

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Fears spread that Bangkok will drown

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Torrents of water gush through hard-hit Auytthaya

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People help one another on streets where deadly clashes took place last year